Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav said on Wednesday that they will not attend the consecration ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22, ANI reported.
Pawar received an invitation to attend the event from Champat Rai, the general secretary of the Shriram Janmabhoomi Tirtha Kshetra. In response, he said that he would visit the temple after its construction was complete.
“After the ceremony on January 22, it will be easier to take the darshan of Ram Lalla,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying in a letter to Rai. “I have a scheduled visit to Ayodhya and at that time, I can pay my respects to Lord Ram with much devotion. By then, the construction of the Ram temple will also be completed.”
Yadav also said that he would not attend the ceremony, but did not cite a reason.
Other prominent leaders who will not attend the event are the Congress’ Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also said it would not attend the ceremony.
The Congress alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have turned the consecration of the Ram temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya into a political event.
Banerjee said that on January 22, she will hold an interfaith rally that will cover temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras.
The Ram temple is being built on the site of the razed Babri mosque. The Babri mosque was demolished by Hindutva extremists on December 6, 1992, because they believed that it stood on the spot where the deity Ram had been born.
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